Sprint to start Throttling Top 5% in Congested Areas

[HawaiiD]

They are upgrading their 3G network by adding additional back haul to its EvDo sites. Instead of T1 lines, EvDo data runs through fiber, just like LTE. Sprint's current LTE (on the PCS band) is running on a 5x5 MHz channel due to spectrum constraints. Because of this, the amount of users are limited to slower throughput and speeds. T-Mobile has went ahead and rolled out 10x10 and 20x20mhz carriers in areas that their spectrum has allowed. This is why T-Mobile can attain faster speeds than Sprint as of now.

Sprint is rolling out B41 (Clearwires spectrum) in 20mhz channels which is live in certain cities now and growing. Sprint's B41 can pull around ~70mbps at the moment and can scale up to 168mbps if the back haul allows it.

To top that off, Sprint is also rolling out B26 on most sites to allow for better building penetration and general coverage. The throttling only applies to people that are influencing others negatively on the network.

All of the carriers have the right to throttle your speeds. It's in the ToS. I feel like this new policy they're enforcing will keep at bay those that have cancelled their ISP because they have LTE at home via Sprint.

I do think Sprint has the most potential of all carriers down the road, but it's going to take a lot of time to get the product they're looking for because they're rebuilding their entire network, not just upgrading it with overlays.

Sent from my LG-LS980

Until then though your paying a good amount of your hard earned cash on a network that under performs.
I do hope spark matures to rival the big two in terms of data speeds and coverage.


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[HawaiiD]

Can't speak for other carriers, but Verizon's 4GLTE is unthrottled even for those on the unlimited data plan.

dpham00, Android Central Moderator
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T-Mobile' simple choice plan with unlimited data is unthrottled too

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[HawaiiD]

Also where you have the high speed on Sprint, is it a high load area? That makes a big difference. Getting high speeds in the middle of nowhere doesn't really mean much. Also it depends on how many people in the area are on Sprint. I talked to my co-workers and I know people on Verizon, tmobile, and att, but no one that I talked to used Sprint. Obviously I didn't survey the thousands of people in my building, but my guess is load on Sprint towers is much lower than Verizon towers.

dpham00, Android Central Moderator
Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 3

The way sprint's network is performing? I'd say all of their markets could be considered high congestion areas

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[HawaiiD]

633gb and 1.4tb.... Both in under 10 days.
This is why all good things MUST come to an end! :facepalm:

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True but we havent heard of throttling on Verizon's unlimited data plan nor T-Mobile' s unlimited data plan

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[HawaiiD]

He's on T-Mobile and ....I meant his network and possibly mine in the very near future. Heck, I already use up to 15gb and that's normal usage, no abuse. Imagine when Spark goes up fro 60-70mb, to 168-300mb in the next year..... Watch, more ppl like him will come over to kill our Network and then make the policies and restrictions worse for us regular users.

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Hopefully, there will be no throttling in your area?
Because with those speeds?
5 Gb will last you a day

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[HawaiiD]

If you would take the time to read better, you would see I wrote; in the very near future. When T-Mobile is just 'another' carrier left behind by Sprint Spark (I just added that btw lol)

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For now I am happy with my 60-70MB DL real world speeds in Hawaii with unlimited unthrottled data

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[dpham00]

T-Mobile' simple choice plan with unlimited data is unthrottled too

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True, but Verizon offers unlimited hotspot

dpham00, Android Central Moderator
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[Almeuit]

For now I am happy with my 60-70MB DL real world speeds in Hawaii with unlimited unthrottled data

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Still no throttle and I did my adventure to 1 TB just to see if I could. .

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[Bigballer]

Still no throttle and I did my adventure to 1 TB just to see if I could. .

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Seriously man, what do you do with your phone to use 1 tb.

My home network barely sees 300 gb a month and that's with netflix, youtube, voip, torrents, gaming etc.

 

[Almeuit]

Seriously man, what do you do with your phone to use 1 tb.

My home network barely sees 300 gb a month and that's with netflix, youtube, voip, torrents, gaming etc.

I don't normally. I tried this time to see if there was some kind of invisible throttle limit.

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[HawaiiD]

True, but Verizon offers unlimited hotspot

dpham00, Android Central Moderator
Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 3

Included or do you pay extra?

T-Mobile has a hotspot feature that is included in the
Simple choice plan @ 5GB now. My older unlimited data plan has 3GB.
You could add more at a cost but 5GB (my wife) and me= 8GB per month hot spot allowance that is plenty much for my kids tablets while we're on the go. Heck...I even tether my coworkers at work that is on Sprint from time to time and still have plenty left over at the end of my billing cycle

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[dpham00]

Included or do you pay extra?

T-Mobile has a hotspot feature that is included in the
Simple choice plan @ 5GB now. My older unlimited data plan has 3GB.
You could add more at a cost but 5GB (my wife) and me= 8GB per month hot spot allowance that is plenty much for my kids tablets while we're on the go. Heck...I even tether my coworkers at work that is on Sprint from time to time and still have plenty left over at the end of my billing cycle

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I pay $30 extra for unlimited hotspot. But it is truly unlimited. It depends on your needs. For example, Netflix can run up to 7gb per hour depending on quality. Now if you are just using email or browsing the Web or other activity that isn't data heavy, then 3gb tethering may be enough


dpham00, Android Central Moderator

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[dpham00]

This is exactly why they're doing it. You're likely a victim of data abusers in your area and it's ruining your experience with Sprint and you've already begun complaining about the networks performance. It only takes like ~3 users maxing out the data on a sector to make speeds unbearable for the rest.

Do you have a source? According to Neal Gompa of Extremetech, 5 mhz can support 200 active connections at full speed

" LTE can support up to 200 active data clients (smartphones, tablets, USB modems, mobile hotspots, etc.) at full speed for every 5MHz of spectrum allocated per cell. That means that if a particular tower has 20MHz of spectrum allocated to it, it can support up to 800 data clients at full speed."


http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/110711-what-is-lte/2

dpham00, Android Central Moderator

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